


From The Ashes

by Nununununu



Category: Original Work
Genre: Attraction, Don't copy to another site, Dubious Morality, F/F, First Meetings, Future, Getting to Know Each Other, Magic, Pre-Relationship, Space Stations, space fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:02:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Really, being a cult leader was the best job she’d ever had.Then the goddess Morgana was sure she'd invented actually turned up.
Relationships: Cult Leader Who Made Up A Goddess/Real Forgotten Goddess Exactly Matching Her Description, Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Canon Ball 2020





	From The Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



> For silveradept :)
> 
> (Originally posted 17.10; updated for author reveals)

“Gaze long into the fire,” Morgana cried as the flames seemed to stretch up from the fake logs as if yearning to clasp her outstretched hands, “And see how our Lady gazes back at us.”

“ _She watches us and takes away our woes_ ,” The kneeling figures behind her intoned.

“Take them away!” Flinging her arms out either side of her as crackling sparks like exploding stars shot out of the fire, Morgana revelled in the murmurs of the worshippers – _her_ worshippers, although she must take care not to think of them like that too often, lest she accidentally say as much out loud – and bowed her head in a reasonably convincing show of humility as, rising, they filed out of the hall one by one, each dropping a handful of precious bronze onto the fire.

“Bronze for our Lady,” They chanted as the tiny tokens fell, “Bronze for our Love.”

“Bronze to buy myself booze,” Morgana sing-songed under her breath, grinning as she dismissed the false fire – a small matter of tampering with the station’s virtual reality magic system along with some carefully timed flicker-and-flash spells – and scooped up the tokens out of the remarkably uncharred fake wood.

Really, being a cult leader was the best job she’d ever had. She’s stowed away on the _Fae’s Delight_ when she’d had a falling out with Old Earth – or, more like it, _it_ had fallen out with _her_ –talked her way into a Cabin Girl job, which hadn’t been delightful at all, flirted her way into the half-dragon half-orc Captain’s bed, which had been better, then talked her way onto the _Golden Knight’s_ Mega Space Station when the _Fae’s Delight_ passed it on its marathon journey to orbit the terribly named Planet V86b-2000 out in the still mostly uncharted territories, and then got so bored that she ended up making some terrible decisions about sex, before getting drunk one day and accidentally inventing a goddess.

Firess was also the best goddess possible, even if her name did rank only slightly higher than Planet V86b-2000 in Morgana’s private opinion – back when she’d first come up with it after her fifth shot of whatever it was, it had seemed clever. Firess was also eternally naked, made mostly of flames – or at least her hair was, depending on what exactly Morgana was imagining getting up to with the goddess at the time – and was just a _bit_ of a voyeur.

So Morgana liked to poke her nose a little into other people’s business and know who was fucking who, so what. What passed for entertainment on the _Golden Knight_ – other than her invented religion – sucked; she could hardly be blamed. It was all blah blah recycled air and blah blah we don’t sell any _fun_ magic and blah blah don’t go under the fake waterfall, it’s stopped working again, and blah blah oh we’re probably going to die because oops, we didn’t take enough power for our megalong journey, but we’re not going to tell people about that.

Well, fuck, people were guessing anyway. And people were quite understandably getting anxious. Fractious. Anxious and fractious, which wasn’t a great mix when you were nursing a hangover or were seeing another in the making, which these days Morgana often was.

Why’d anyone want to go off to live forever orbiting some rock anyway? It wasn’t like there were any last grand adventures to be had or ancient wizards to duel or something. Most of the idiots had even _paid_ to be there – they weren’t even crew.

She guessed Old Earth being a shithole was reason enough. It had been for her, anyway. No one back there had much time for a half-Fae half-Elf who didn’t give much of a damn for the expectations that came with either part.

Anyway, at least worshipping Firess gave the largely idle inhabitants of the _Golden Knight_ some hope. It also gave Morgana an income. What more could she want from life? Except to be crushed into frozen nothingness if the power went out, that was.

Maaaybe she should stop using the virtual reality magic system for her little scenes with her cult. It did drain the generators rather, after all – she should know, because she’d slept with its maintenance tech and the woman _wouldn’t stop_ going on about it whenever they weren’t in bed. Or sometimes even when they were in it. That dalliance hadn’t lasted for long.

But the generators could crank back enough power to keep the Mega Space Station pondering on through the void for another few days if people didn’t do much of their designated ‘evening’ other than stare through the viewports out at the speck in the black nothingness that would eventually grow into Planet V86b-2000 and think about being nailed by a sexy naked goddess. Who was on fire.

Yeah.

So Morgana encouraged her worshippers – er, _the_ _goddess’_ worshippers – to do exactly this after they’d left the hall, while she went and got plastered at the just-about-still-functioning bar.

Intending to do precisely this, she turned her back on the remains of the false fire while shoving the tokens in her shitty SpaceSuit pocket, and nearly leapt out of her skin.

_“Greetings, Morgana. Fancy meeting you here!”_

There was a sexy naked woman standing in front of her, tall and broad shouldered and sculpted just as wonderfully as if she’d emerged straight out of Morgana’s very active imagination. _Who was on fire._

“Oh fuck,” Gasping, Morgana wondered vaguely if the power had finally gone out after all, but no. She was just passing out.

How embarrassing. She might have been more worried about it though, had Firess – and it _was_ the goddess, _how in the holy fuck_ – not caught her.

Amazingly, Morgana wasn’t burning to death as a result. Instead she was smushed against a truly magnificent bosom.

“Why _hello_ ,” Morgana greeted those boobs, and then got on with finishing fainting.

Damn.

\--

“Firess,” Firess said flatly, when Morgana had revived to find herself propped up at the bar so, hey, it looked like the goddess could read minds, just like Morgana had told her – that is, the other _her_ – worshippers.

Shit, she really needed to stop thinking about that flaming hair and those soft nipples.

“What?” Smirking a bit, Morgana took another swig from her mug. So the alcohol tasted like shit with a bit of a half-assed spell sprinkled on top to make it sparkly, but at least it wasn’t health food.

“You couldn’t come up with anything better?” Perched on the edge of a miraculously non-burning stool, Firess was busy gazing with open curiosity at anyone and everyone in the bar.

Both the Fae bartender and other drinkers were staring back at her motionlessly, as one – orcs, elves, knights and mages alike. This possibly had something to do with the fact that, when it came to flaming hair, this didn’t just apply to the hair on Firess’ _head_.

Or maybe it was just Morgana paying close attention to that.

Nah, it wasn’t just Morgana. She wondered if it would be warm to touch. What it would feel like against her mouth.

Her lambent gaze transferring onto the cult leader knowingly, the goddess smirked.

Oh yeah, the reading minds thing. Morgana tipped her mug in acknowledgement.

“Don’t tell me that’s your _actual_ name,” Snorting, she beckoned to the bartender to fill said mug back up, “I didn’t _actually_ invent you, did I.”

Well, she _had_ , but apparently it was just a coincidence. Apparently Firess – who hopefully wasn’t in reality called Firess, given Morgana had an active imagination but it didn’t generally extend as far as descriptors beyond “goddess on fire who has an amazing ass” – had existed all along, but had been forgotten by her worshippers.

Relishing the sight of the other woman’s body as she knocked back her fresh drink, Morgana couldn’t even begin to understand how anyone could forget _that_.

“So is it true you really take away woes?” She waggled her eyebrows meaningfully once she’d swallowed. Might as well try, right? Besides, as cult leader, wasn’t it only right she be first in line to do a little worship?

“If I had enough believers,” Firess’ gaze on her went very intent –

And Morgana suddenly had the impression she was _seen_ , all the way through, all the way to the half-Fae half-elvish heart of her, and that what she had thought to be empty and petty was in fact _full_ of want. Not just for this hot – literally – woman in her bed; not just for whatever tokens she could get her hands on. Not just for the cheap tricks she conned the cult members with, desperate people who were all too ready to be swayed. But –

Damn. But she _wanted_ –

She wanted, oh, she wanted Planet V86b-2000 to turn out to be some sort of mystical gateway or some shit like that – somewhere that magic properly worked and no longer had to be _bought_ , somewhere a girl could have a proper adventure, like in the stories her Fae Gran had used to tell; somewhere she could tame dragons and go on raiding parties with orcs and make deals with dwarves and make friends with a talking horse like Old Earth used to have however many centuries ago before all the wonder turned to crap, and –

“Fuck, I gave up on those sorts of fantasies when I was, like, _four_ ,” Snorting, Morgana waved the goddess off, as if by doing so she could stop Firess from digging such thoughts out of the long forgotten depths of her brain. 

“You could,” Firess said quietly, and it was like it was just the two of them suddenly, like the rest of the bar had just – gone somewhere unimportant.

Like it was just them.

Morgana had to search the bottom of her mug for any remaining drink at the rather unwanted thought that she actually _believed_. She who relied on herself for not believing in _anything_ , well –

She’d probably finally cracked from boredom. But still. She truly did believe she was sitting there next to a real life goddess. Who was on fire and who _saw_ her.

Exactly how much would Firess be able to do – how much would she be able to heal? – if enough people wanted it? If enough people saw her and she saw them in return?

“Now you’re getting it,” Firess said softly, and there was something terribly sad yet hopeful in her face, “I was forgotten because people stopped remembering how to believe. They didn’t _want_ to believe. But here where you have such need – where you already have some believers – You are my priestess, Morgana. Take me to my believers and I will see this ‘Space Station’ healed of its hurts for a start.”

She spoke of the _Golden Knight_ as if the very concept baffled her, which – yeah, fair enough. It baffled Morgana most of the time and that was on a good day.

“Heh,” She sought desperately to cling onto her apathy, “And here I thought cult leader had a nice ring to it. Ringmaster. The one who calls the shots.”

“ _I_ will call the shots,” Firess’ correction was decisive, “But give me what I need and I will give you what you want.” Her pause seemed loaded, but perhaps that was just because Morgana was busy looking at her bosom. “Entirely.”

“Entirely?” Morgana dragged her gaze up to the goddess’ expression. Yup, that was an invitation there. _Awesome_. “All right, lady. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“One tiny little thing first,” Firess pursed her lips on a smile as Morgana offered her hand to shake.

“Hm?” Changing the terms?

Soft flames licked around her forehead as Firess tipped her head, “Just the matter of my name.”

“Firess,” Morgana started, but then stopped. Because –

Deep down in that part of her brain she didn’t normally exercise, she _had_ thought of a different name for her invented goddess, hadn’t she. And, well, if the real Firess seemed just the same as Morgana’s invention in every other way, then maybe this actual name was the same too.

“Okay,” Finding she smiled a little and straightened up on her stool almost despite herself, Morgana leaned in confidentially towards the goddess, “Let’s go get you some worshippers and sort out this cruddy universe. _Blaze_.”

“Now _that’s_ more like it,” Blaze’s grin outshone all her flames.


End file.
